Dan’s Papers February 4, 2011 danspapers.com Page 13
In Search of a Jam One Man’s Quest to Play “Oh! Susanna” By Dan Rattiner Last Thursday at 5 p.m., I grabbed my autoharp and kazoo and headed out of the house to find a jam session to play at. There had been a beautiful sunset over the harbor a half hour earlier. I had a fire going. It was a snowy evening. “When will you be back?” she asked. “In time for dinner at eight,” I said. There are all sorts of jam sessions in the Hamptons these days. I don’t know why. There didn’t used to be. I stumbled upon one in Amagansett late one afternoon at the Crosswords Music Store in the Square there. It was a bunch of older men and women knocking out stuff from the 1980s—Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, The Who. A guy at Starbucks has been holding jam sessions in the Bay Burger space in Sag Harbor on
Thursday evenings. It’s listed as jazz, which doesn’t work for an autoharp. There’s at least four others I have heard about, one at Blue Sky in Sag Harbor, another at Rowdy Hall in East Hampton on Sundays, another at the Pizza Place on Montauk Highway in Bridgehampton on Mondays and one called Live at the Indigo in Riverhead on Saturday nights. There are also occasional jams at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett. Now I had heard there was a jam session at Bay Street Theatre in that town. So I thought I’d try that. Fact was, I hadn’t had my autoharp out in 10 years. But tonight would be the night. I spent half an hour getting it in tune. In Sag Harbor, I found a spot on Main Street, got out of my car and picked my way through the ice and snow to Bay Street. The Jam was in the
lobby and it was packed. There were people standing around or sitting on stools or chairs and quietly nodding to the music and even from outside the glass front doors, I knew right away I was in the wrong place. The kind of jam I was looking for was where people join in at the chorus. This wasn’t it. But I went in anyway. People smiled at me when I settled in a seat. I set down my autoharp case. Another musician is what they were thinking. They looked at the case. What was in it? A French horn? I nodded back. Nope, I said to myself. The group of musicians was set up along a side wall adjacent to the box office booths. In front of the back wall and to the right of the musicians was the snack bar on the counter of which were an array of crackers, cheese and grapes. Facing (continued on next page)
SCENES FROM THE FILM “CEREMONY” SHOT HERE By David Rattiner More and more, the Hamptons are becoming a backdrop for Hollywood movies. We even have a hit television show, “Royal Pains,” that uses the Hamptons and its appeal to attract viewers. It all seems to be working, which is a good thing for the area and there are more movies on the way. A brand new movie called Ceremony stars the great actress Uma Thurman and is about a wedding that takes place on the East End. Yes that’s right, Uma Thurman. The new movie was written and directed by Max Winkler, who is the son of the legendary actor who Henry Winkler who we all know as
“The Fonz.” Ceremony is about a young guy in love with an older woman who is about to get married and, of course, he has to do something about that— which makes for some very funny moments. It was produced by Magnolia Pictures and stars Michael Angarano, Reece Thompson, Lee Pace and, of course, Uma Thurman. Michael Angarano’s character is a children’s book author who talks his best friends into coming out to a Hamptons weekend beach house, owned by another friend of his, a famous documentary filmmaker played by Lee Pace. Very quickly Michael Angarano’s character becomes obsessed and in love with the fiancee of the documentary
filmmaker, played by Uma Thurman. This is the first film created by Max Winkler, 27, a USC film school graduate. His previous work, King of Central Park, made headlines in the Tribeca Film Festival, the Malibu International Film Festival and the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. The cast is extremely interesting when you look at the roles that the actors have been in previously. Uma Thurman, quite possibly one of the most interesting female actresses of our generation, always dazzles on screen and has starred in hits such as the Kill Bill movies and her breakthrough film Dangerous Liasons. But (continued on page 16)